California’s grasslands were built by hooves. Elk and pronghorn once crossed them in tight herds, grazing hard for a day, pushed on by predators and by their own hunger for fresh feed. Months or years passed before they came back. The grasses evolved around that rhythm and still expect it.

The wild herds are gone. The cattle do that work now.

The herd grazes a pasture and moves the same day. Hooves break the crust so rain can find its way in. Manure and urine go back into the ground. Then the pasture is left alone, often for more than a year, long enough for perennial bunchgrasses to put down deep roots.

Recovery is measured rather than assumed. Seven years of soil, grazing, and forage records track what each pasture is doing, and the herd moves according to what the land can carry.

The rest of the system follows. Deep roots carry carbon down and hold it there, where soil microbes put it to use. Dung beetles bury manure within days, and a University of California survey of ranches across the state recorded five species here, several of them rare.

Cattle belong to this landscape. They are one of the things that keeps it alive.